Perspective

"Go ahead, you can laugh all you want

I've got my philosophy

And I trust it like the ground

That's why my philosophy

Keeps me walking when I'm falling down"

Ben Folds, "Philosophy", 1995

(This song has a somewhat tenuous link to the topic, but surely you have worked out by now that I like Ben Folds. This song has operated as my mobile phone ring tone for many years. Ben Folds in fact announced an Australian tour in May 2011 this week - yay!)

It has come to my attention recently at work that the word perspective is rather popular. In fact so many people use it/refer to it that it borders on annoying, and I try to use whatever synoynm I can instead of it. Individuals have perspectives, groups of people (departments, divisions, teams, customers etc) have perspectives, the overall business has perspectives. I thought I would look it up just to make sure everyone was using it in the right context:

per-spec-tive

1.

a. A view or vista

b. A mental view or outlook ... (my italics)

2. The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision

3.

a. The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.

b. Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view ... etc.

(courtesy of thefreedictionary.com)

The word is not used in the Bible (according to my NIV Compact Concordance) but it is obviously key to faith both now and then. I was watching American Dad (Season 3, Episode 3: Dope and Faith) this week, where Stan (bless his heart) and his new friend shared a common view on so many things that he couldn't fathom that this friend could not have faith and spent half the episode trying to convince him otherwise. We are so keen to share and accept perspectives from one another these days, that I can't help wondering whether Stan has a more amenable approach to our God - even though his creator (Seth McFarlene) happens to be an atheist.